Happy October, everyone. I never really do all that much for Halloween, but I love this time of year anyway. This year in particular, there’s some big events coming, foremost of which is Doctor Who’s return on Sunday, with Jodie Whittaker’s first full episode as the Thirteenth Doctor. As you might remember, last year I spent around four months catching up with six years of the show so that I could watch the Christmas special featuring Twelve’s departure and Thirteen’s first appearance as it aired. That episode ended up being one of my all-time favorites, and Thirteen made a hell of a good first impression in just her first minute-plus of screentime. I’ve been looking forward to the start of her tenure for months now, and I know she’s going to be spectacular… or rather, brilliant. :D

Sunday is also the premiere of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 5: Golden Wind, which… well, Part 5 is pretty much the only portion of JJBA that I haven’t been spoiled on, so I’m looking forward to going in with a blank slate. About all I know is that this part’s Jojo is both Dio’s son and a Joestar, it takes place entirely in Italy and deals heavily with the local Mafia, and the main villain’s Stand has powers that damn near nobody can explain, to the point that “But what does *SPOILER STAND NAME* do?!” is a meme in the fandom.

As far as my projects go… I’m trying to get the next chapter of Shattered Skies up as soon as possible. I had planned on having another Non-Canonical Lunatic Crack Chapter up for the fic’s fourth(!!!) anniversary on the 14th, but barring a big flash of inspiration, I’m not sure that’s going to happen. I don’t want to do the same thing I did last year, and I’m not sure I have enough funny material to devote to the idea I have knocking around. I may have to shelve the NCLCC concept until next year, but I’ll come up with something to mark the occasion, new chapter or not.

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The first chapter of Uravity Falls, the cute, fluffy little story I wrote mostly for fun, got a tremendous response when I posted it last week. I woke up the next morning to forty messages in my inbox, all of them notifications from the various hosting sites regarding the story. To be honest, that’s the kind of response I wish I could get more often, but hey, I’ll enjoy it when I can get it. Completing the first chapter of UF officially snapped me out of my slump, as I was able to get out Chapter 4 of Twilight’s Dreaming only a few days later. I still plan on at least trying to publish Chapter 5 by the end of the month, to make up for missing August.

Back to UF for a moment: this story and the BNHA video game releasing at the end of next month are going to be my way of getting my fix for the series after the season finale next week. This season has officially cemented BNHA as one of my favorite series ever; I’ll be sad to see it end for now, but Season 4 being a virtual guarantee for next spring takes the sting out of it a bit. And of course, next season features JOJO PART 5, so it’s not like I’ll be lacking insanely awesome action shows to watch.

Planet With also ended this week, and oh my god what a trip it was. Rather than attempt to explain the show’s insane charms again, I’d like to direct all my readers to this Mother’s Basement video from a couple weeks ago. Geoff summed it up quite nicely as “Gurren Lagann meets Earthbound” in the title, but he also gave the series a thorough analysis that contributed greatly to my enjoyment of the show. The man knows his stuff. Here’s the link: [link]

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I don’t do well with storms. I was five years old when Hurricane Hugo hit my neighborhood in North Carolina, twelve when Fran put a branch through my parents’ bedroom ceiling, and fifteen when we had to evacuate our house for three days because of Floyd… which was also the same week that I had walking pneumonia with a 112-degree fever. So I think that given my past trauma, I was completely justified in having constant anxiety attacks in the days leading up to Florence. Fortunately, my family and I dodged a bullet… lots of rain, but no damage, and only a tiny leak in the basement. My deepest sympathies go out to those who were less lucky than we are; believe me, I know how much it sucks.

So no, there’s no real progress to report this week, sorry. My recent problems concentrating have been made even worse by my nerves and by my workspace being disrupted for hurricane-proofing. This dry spell sucks just as much for me as it does for you, if not moreso. If it goes on too much longer, I may need to take drastic measures to get myself back on track. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.

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It’s hard to believe it’s been seven years today since I posted the first chapter of Stars Above. I was on an overnight petsitting job, borrowing my clients’ laptop to make the final adjustments to what would become a three-year project… I knew I had something with a ton of potential, but at the start I had an attitude of “let’s just post and see what happens”. It wasn’t until several weeks later when the third chapter was underway that my friend and co-author Forzare sent me the email that would change everything, suggesting that since the Madoka Magica anime drew so heavily from the story of Faust, we should base the framework of our story on Dante’s Inferno, with our intelligent Demons representing each of the nine Circles of Hell. That was what truly lit the spark for me and gave me a plan for how things would go… of course, things ended up changing along the way due to a certain shapeshifter completely eclipsing my intended final villain in terms of sheer awfulness, but in the end that change was for the better. Thanks to all of you who stuck with it all the way. I’m still quite proud of my baby, my first serious fanfic.

Speaking of fanfic, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention a Shattered Skies review I found in my inbox this morning, a multi-paragraph monster from someone on FF.net who had never commented on the story before. I bring it up because it’s a perfect example of my favorite kind of review. Not only did they go in-depth (and how!), but they got it. They got exactly what I’ve been going for with this story for nearly four years now. It’s a feeling of superb giddiness when a reader has such a complete understanding of your work’s themes, a kind of pure joy that’s difficult to describe. And even better, they mentioned how they’ve come to love and care for even the characters from series they’re not familiar with… No matter how many times it happens, seeing someone say “I’ve never seen X before, but your story got me watching it!” warms my heart. Thank you, palad1n, for making my week… hell, my month.

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And here I thought this was going to be a slow news week. News dropped on Saturday that AHHHHH HOLY CRAP NEW MADOKA ANIME GET HYPE GET HYPE GET-

*whack*

Ahem. Beg your pardon. So yes, the Madoka franchise is returning to TV in 2019 with an adaptation of the Magia Record mobile game! Speaking as a huge and unrepentant Madoka dork, hell friggin’ yes. It’s way past time for the series to get another major installment, and if this helps bring PMMM back into the spotlight and get the elusive fourth movie made, I’m 1000% for it. When it comes out, I’ll be doing an in-depth liveblog on my Tumblr, count on it.

I finished Episode 08 of Silent InvenTOYry on time, and had it posted to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the first airing of Power Rangers. Not a bad hustle, if I say so myself. The episode is below… as usual, please watch multiple times and do the like/upvote/comment/subscribe thing… and remember, $2 Patreon pledges will get their names in future episodes. Here’s your embed:

The next episode should be a Semi-Short, which is tentatively slated for sometime in December, with another full episode on track for January.

Sadly, I think the push to get the episode finished and out sort of fried my creative circuits. I’ve been largely unable to focus for the past week. I hated to miss my end-of-the-month Patreon deadline, particularly since my longtime Onions friend evilneko just became my fifth Patron… but it was either miss the deadline or force it and put up something I wasn’t satisfied with, so I chose the former. I’ll do my best to get back on track this week, but burnout can be a tenacious thing.

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Tomorrow’s my birthday. Tomorrow also happens to be the 25th anniversary of the first episode of Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, a series that started me on the road to becoming the Japanese culture nut that I am today. The show premiered on my ninth birthday, and I was there watching, utterly enthralled from the first moment I saw the Dinozords combining. I was there watching the night of the prime-time special where they introduced Lord Zedd, the villain that terrified an entire generation of children (before the stupid parents groups forced the writers to make him less scary, that is). I was there when Tommy made his return as the White Ranger. When Jason, Trini, and Zack left, my enthusiasm for the series started to diminish a bit, then it came back when Zeo premiered, went away again for Turbo, and came back for In Space. In the years since, I’ve always been at least semi-aware of what was going on in the franchise, no matter what else I was into at the time, In 2009, as it looked like PR was ending for good, I fell in love with Super Sentai through Samurai Sentai Shinkenger, to a probably unhealthy degree. My interest will come and go, but PR and Sentai are always close to my heart. Part of me is still the little kid watching the robots fight rubber-suited monsters and loving every minute of it… part of me is still the kid who used to fantasize about joining the cast someday and taking command of Titanus, my favorite Zord, as the Grey Ranger. (I still take a weird sort of pride in the fact that for about 20 years, I could claim grey as my Ranger color… When they finally debuted an official Grey Ranger, it was in another dinosaur series, of all things!)

Yes, it was goofy. Yes, the dubbing was horrible, the acting was sub-par, the switch between Japanese and American footage was even noticeable to a nine-year-old, and the whole thing was first and foremost a vehicle to sell toys. Who cares? PR and Sentai were never supposed to be great art, but for me and an entire generation of kids, they were something extraordinary. Hell yes, I would still take a role on the show in a heartbeat if I were able… even if I couldn’t be the Grey Titanus Ranger, I’d still have that little piece of immortality.

So anyway. My new Silent InvenTOYry episode is going up at midnight EST, and it’s a special Power Rangers-themed episode. I put a ton of effort into this one, so I hope you’ll all love it.

The new episode has been my number-one priority for the past week, so everything else is on temporary hold. Things will get back to normal soon.

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The title for this week’s Report is the exact, verbatim reaction VDrake had when I first told him about one of the most devastating plot developments I had in store for Shattered Skies… That was something like two years ago, to give you an idea of exactly how far I plan this stuff in advance.

However, when it came time to actually write said scene, it turned out to be one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. It was far more raw and emotional than I expected, and I had to draw on some of my worst memories for inspiration, which… well. It’s a damned good thing the scene turned out like it did, because it was a legitimate concern of mine that if it came off as a cheap tearjerker or anything less than sincere, if I either overplayed or underplayed that moment, or any of the other raw moments in this chapter for that matter, it could derail my entire story. I was more nervous about posting Chapter 37 than I have been posting anything else in at least a year.

The response was worth it, fortunately. I already told some of you how I changed my mind and decided to end the chapter on an uplift… and now I’m so glad I did. I wasn’t expecting the new ending to get the most response, given everything else that happens… but hey, I’m happy it worked.

I have almost all the footage I need for Silent InvenTOYry Episode 08 shot, except for two scenes that will require some extra preparation and craftwork. My target date for uploading the ep is next Tuesday, so providing my materials get here in the mail within the week, I should be on track.

And after that, plus this month’s Tasakeru chapter… I’m seriously considering doing a one-shot Boku no Hero Academia fic about Uraraka. My precious cinnamon roll needs more love. I’m still trying to make up my mind in terms of plot, but we’ll see.

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First off this week: I’m proud to announce the publication of Mirror Shards, a Shattered Skies recursive fanfiction by friend and frequent commentator/feedback-leaver ArtIdiotGuy222. AIG and I have been collaborating on this thing for several weeks now, trading ideas back and forth to make sure neither of us is stepping on the other’s canon. The story stars Kyoko Kanae, a singularly unique Precure OC who has been part of all of the canon teams, thanks to time shenanigans and multiversal weirdness. Teaming up with the reformed Dark Precure 5 and Bad End Cures, the effects of Dead End’s war on reality strike Kyoko in ways that no one can predict. Needless to say, I’m blown away that someone thinks enough of my work to create their own spin on it, and I’m seriously impressed with the results so far. Please go check it out at the link above, or here on DA.

I had hoped that I would have Chapter 37 of Shattered Skies out tonight, since it’s way overdue, but it looks like it’ll be at least another day before it’s done. There are scenes in this chapter which absolutely must be done proper justice, so the last thing I want to do is rush it out the door. When I do, though… I’m making a change on the meta-level that I think will be for the better. More on that once the chapter goes up.

I also made some major Tasakeru progress on the self-publishing front… I’m happy to announce that Book I is closer than ever to going up on Amazon. There’s still some formatting kinks I need to work out, but the bulk of the work on the manuscript is done at last.

Anime stuff: I don’t think enough of you are watching Planet With. It’s a spectacularly weird sci-fi/mecha show that’s running in the current season, and when I say “spectacularly weird”, I mean that there’s giant perverted cats that swallow people before turning into mechas, alien weapons that attack people with their past traumas, a conspiracy involving warring factions of space-cats versus space-dogs, and Norio freaking Wakamoto as one of the aforementioned space-cats. I find it hilarious that they hired one of the most legendary Japanese voice actors of all time to voice a character that only says “Nya!” in various inflections. I mean, he did voice Chiyo’s Dad in Azumanga Daioh, so he’s got precedent for voicing bizarre cat… things… but still. Chiyo’s Dad could actually talk in that wonderful, distinctive Wakamoto purr. This character, as I said, seems limited exclusively to saying “Nya”… which is thankfully translated by a maid girl who seems to have no other purpose in the show than to stand around turning “Nya” into complete sentences. Oh yeah, there’s also some damned pretty-looking CG fight scenes, even more impressive considering that CG in TV anime usually seems limited to about 6 frames per second, if that. The show is a unique kind of utterly bonkers, and watching it is becoming a highlight of my week.

– BHS

***

A minor greetings from below, Storyteller222 (aka ArtIdiotGuy on deviantART) here. I’m very grateful to have worked with BHS on Mirror Shards with him and to have his approval on it. It’s been a fun ride thus far showing the events of Shattered Skies from an OC’s perspective and the consequences of such ranging from the nature of the OC in question to arriving late to the battle.

What I will say immediately is that Mirror Shards isn’t exactly necessary when reading Shattered Skies. It’s an optional side story, like the relationship between the Star Wars Movies and whatever cartoon they’ve recently made.

Still, I hope you enjoy the fruits of our labors and what we have to show.

For when the Sky Shatters, the Shards of the Mirror will fall and only show the ruin…

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Job’s done, finally. Once I got home on Friday, I was all set to finally start work in earnest on Episode 08 of Silent InvenTOYry… and then, 12 hours later, I threw my back out for the second time in a month. I’m more stiff now than actually in pain, but until I’m at 100% again, I need to avoid bending over, lifting heavy objects, or making sudden movements. That rules out moving my green screen around or doing any stunts for at least a day or two. Sorry, guys.

I can at least work on writing in the meantime, so the next order of business is to get Chapter 37 of Shattered Skies out. There’s some major changes happening both in and out of story in this one, so perhaps it’s for the best that I waited to devote my full attention to it. In fact, I’m still trying to decide whether or not I need to split this one in two, in order to give each scene the “oomph” I think it deserves.

While you wait on me, have some cuteness from one of my clients. Make sure your sound is turned up.

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One of the benefits of extended house/petsitting jobs, such as the one I am currently on, is that it gives me a chance to catch up on stuff that I’ve been putting off. For example, during my hours between feedings and cleanings last week, I finally got around to finishing Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, only nine years behind the rest of the world. Likewise, I used part of my profits from this job to buy a copy of Persona 4: The Golden, which is a series that everyone and their mother has been telling me I’d love for… around a decade or so. Well, when they’re right, they’re right… I’m at the beginning of July in the game’s calendar, and I absolutely adore it. I’d write a long rave about all the things that I love about it so far, but… well, work-related mental exhaustion. I need to conserve my energy for the other stuff I need to do tonight.

Fear not, noble readers, for a new Tasakeru chapter will be going up tomorrow, and after my job finishes on Friday, I’ll be off and running with Silent InvenTOYry episode 8. I’mma try my best to make up for the lack of content the past two weeks, and with a vengeance.

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Another short one this week, sorry. I’ve been spending a lot of time on a Precure project idea that I came up with last week… something that struck me out of the blue, and which amused me so much that I decided to go ahead with it. It’s a lot of extra work on top of all my other projects, which makes me think that I must have some kind of masochistic streak… but I’m pretty consistently cracking myself up while making this, so that makes it worth it. Hopefully, the finished product will amuse at least a few of you too.

At the end of this week, I’m starting a record 12 days of intensive petsitting, so if I seem to have vanish off the face of the earth between then and August 3rd, that’s the reason. I’m trying to get as much done as I can before the job starts. While I’m on duty, I’ll have a lot of hours to burn sitting around while the animals aren’t demanding food or voiding their bladders/bowels all over the place, so I’m hoping the duller moments will inspire some quality material. I can’t complain too much; this job is going to pay for everything I need for the next full Silent InvenTOYry episode and then some. My goal is to get it out as close to the first week of August as possible.

Oh, and hey, tomorrow marks the end of my 30 day YouTube monetization suspension. I removed all the copyrighted stuff, so cross your fingers for a successful and speedy reapplication process, everybody.

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Yup, just like I figured, this past week was busy as hell. I’m still wiped out, so this will be another short one, but let’s go.

My beloved Studio TRIGGER, of Kill La Kill, Little Witch Academia, and others, has opened a Patreon. I think it’s well worth it to ensure that the staff continues to make awesome stuff, so it was my pleasure to sign up right away as soon as I learned about it. And speaking of TRIGGER… wow, the last few episodes of Darling in the FRANXX were crazy as all hell. There’s good ways to have your story go batshit nuts in the third act, and I’m not sure DitF managed it… but it was a hell of a ride regardless.

Partly because I was so tired from work this week, the conclusion of the latest Stevenbomb blew me the hell away, and I enjoyed it all the more for not realizing until 13 minutes in that it was a double-length episode. And boy howdy did it earn that double length. It was magnificent work by Sugar and the Crewniverse all around.

Sorry to end on a sour note, but: I try to be a kind and patient person, but only to a point. If someone is supporting me and my work, I’m willing to cut them a lot of extra slack. Let it be stated here and now, though, that if someone, say, goes around insulting me behind my back and still expects me to show you respect, their ass is getting dropped. I’ve had too many people take advantage of my good nature over the years to let that kind of thing slide. Let me further point out that it is very unwise to hurl abuse at someone who moderates a large fan community, especially if they’re intending to remain a part of said community. I made it clear in November ’16 that I would not tolerate people trying to instigate drama on my group, and that rule applies to everyone, whether they’re watching me or not. As long as it’s in my power to prevent or put a stop to toxic fandom behavior, I’ll damn well prevent it.

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It’s a good thing I got both a Tasakeru chapter and the new Silent InvenTOYry episode done this past week, because the busiest part of my year is starting. July invariably means tons of people going out of down and needing care for their pets, which means a ton of work for yours truly. I have an especially long job coming up at the end of the month, but I’m gonna try to get as much as I can done before then.

Anyway! Check out my new YouTube stuff below, and rewatch multiple times if you can, please:

I’ve actually had so much fun making short Precure videos for laughs that I started today on a longer project, just for funsies. I’ll probably tinker with it here and there over the next month or two.

And holy hell, speaking of Precure… it’s now official. After this week’s episode Hugtto has joined Heartcatch and Go! Princess in a three-way tie for my favorite Precure series. It wasn’t just the crossover, though that was a major part of it. They made it yet another great Ruru and Emiru episode, and Sayaka Ohara gave it her all in her final(?) appearance as Pupple with some of the best acting I’ve ever seen in this franchise. Then there was that credits sequence… Week after week, they’ve been firing on all cylinders. Giving us the totally unexpected but welcome return of Nagisa and Honoka was just icing; I genuinely love this show, and I can’t wait to see where it goes next.

Anyway, I have Steven Universe to recap, so I’m calling it there. See you all next week.

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Thanks to everybody who offered support during my crisis last week. Taking some time off did me a lot of good… as did seeing that the vast majority of my YouTube subscribers have stuck around, Precure Library or no Precure Library. Maybe I’ll make this thing work yet. I’m still going to keep my streams on hold for now, but I do intend to keep doing regular YouTube uploads to hopefully convince our corporate Google overlords to give me another shot at monetization. Three such uploads are below… The first is something Best Friends Play-themed that I made a couple years ago in Tomodachi Life and posted on Tumblr, to significant success. Matt himself liked and reblogged it!

And the other two are very silly things relating to Hugtto Precure, both with *SPOILERS* if you haven’t been keeping up for the last month or so.

Please watch both multiple times, if you can. Thank you.

This was certainly an unusual week for finales. The final episode of Cutie Honey Universe aired on Saturday, which… well, it was an effing weird episode even by the standards of a Go Nagai series (and I’ve seen most of the previous Cutie Honey anime projects and Devilman Crybaby, so I have experience with his weirdness.)

The other finale was something I was a couple weeks behind on. It pains me to say this, but: what the BLOODY HELL was up with the end of Cardcaptor Sakura: The Clear Card Arc?! It’s not that it was bad, per se, it’s that it… wasn’t a finale. Nothing got settled, very few if any questions got answered, there’s still a mountain of dangling plot threads… hell, if I’m interpreting what happened correctly, the entire Clear Card series may have been invalidated, if not retconned altogether. It feels sort of like the episode order got slashed at the last minute, and they had to cram as much as they could into episode 22 because a 23rd episode wasn’t happening. It sure as hell feels like there’s got to be something more after this, a movie or an OVA or a third cour… because if this is really and truly The End of CCS, then it’s the most unsatisfying ending I’ve seen in a long, long time.

Again, that’s not to say that Clear Card is a bad series. As I’ve said before, seeing Sakura and her friends again has been a highlight of my week every week since January. The animation, music, and character moments were all spectacular, we got more Meilin than I ever dared hope for, Yamazaki got to tell some amazing new lies, and Aya Hisakawa outdid herself with her voice work as Kero. But… well, what I said a couple weeks ago about recent revelations rendering Clear Card as somewhat inessential is way more apt now. For as gorgeous asthe show looks, sounds, and feels, there’s very little about it that seems like a necessary addition to the lore. The new Cards are almost all copies of the old ones in-universe and out, the Sakura Cards are (presumably) gone for good with no fanfare, Sakura herself never finds out the truth about what’s going on… so what’s the point? It’s an OVA and 22 episodes of barely more than fluff. I’ve always said that CCS is more like a slice-of-life series with magical girl elements interspersed, and its relaxed pace and typically low stakes are part of its charm… but this is taking it too far.

I dunno. I’m still confused as hell. If nothing else, at least I don’t have to worry much about the new canon contradicting Shattered Skies anymore… it seems safe to keep ignoring Clear Card altogether as far as my story goes.

Anyway. I should have a new Silent InvenTOYry Semi-Short done by next week at the earliest, with a full-length episode in the works for early August. Look forward to it.

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Week 3 – Change of Plans I hate to have to do this, but I’m canceling the Silent InvenTOYry Semi-Short episode that would have gone up at the end of the month. Looking at the next couple months’ worth of expenses, I think it’s for the best if I hold off purchasing the figure I […]

Week 2 – Back to Work, You Bum! I ended up taking most of the last week off from creative stuff. I felt a creative burnout coming on, and I wanted to do whatever I could to head it off at the pass. So I’m trying to take small steps to get back in my […]

Week 1 – Believing in Bunny Senpai Yeah, I’m calling this “2019, Week 1” even though 2019 hasn’t technically started yet. I mean, it’s better than calling it Week 53 of 2018, right? It’s been semi-quiet today, for once. Holidays are always busy seasons for those of us in the petsitting business, but today was […]

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Tasakeru, tasakeru.com, and all related contents, text, and media are the Intellectual Property (IP) of BHS and BHS Productions, registered in 2009, and may not be modified, reproduced, or changed in any way, shape, or form without the author's express permission. For more information on usage rights, see the From the Author page.